1199 caregivers ended New York University’s school year with two leafletting actions at commencement ceremonies aimed at informing graduates and their family members about the unlawful conduct of Law School trustee Daniel Straus’s companies, Care One and HealthBridge. The certificate-inspired leaflet satirically named Daniel Straus “NYU Trustee of the Year” and urged graduates and their families to tell the school that its trustees and their companies should respect the law.

The group began by handing out leaflets at NYU’s massive graduation at Yankee Stadium on May 22. The graduates and their families seemed receptive to the leaflets, which congratulated the graduates on their accomplishments, while urging them to remember the struggles of Care One and HealthBridge’s workers. They followed up by handing out additional leaflets at NYU Law School’s convocation on Friday, May 24 at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan, which was an event reserved exclusively for those graduating from the law school.

Daniel Straus endows NYU Law School’s Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law and Justice with $1.25 million annually. Meanwhile, the nursing home companies he runs, Care One and HealthBridge, have been found by Administrative Law Judges to have violated federal labor law 23 times. Some nursing homes run by these companies have cut healthcare benefits, staffing and wages for caregivers, have unlawfully fired workers for trying to form a union, or have refused to recognize their workers legally protected right to form a union.

Concerned about the mistreatment of these workers, NYU students from the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), have been calling on the school to oust Straus from its law school board of trustees unless the companies he runs obey the law and treat their workers fairly. They see hypocrisy in an Institute dedicated to the study of law and justice accepting funds from an endower whose companies have repeatedly violated federal labor law.

For further information or to take action, visit CareOneWatch.org